• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About
  • Donate

The Arts Fuse

Boston's Online Arts Magazine: Dance, Film, Literature, Music, Theater, and more

  • Podcasts
  • Coming Attractions
  • Reviews
  • Short Fuses
  • Interviews
  • Commentary
  • The Arts
    • Performing Arts
      • Dance
      • Music
      • Theater
    • Other
      • Books
      • Film
      • Food
      • Television
      • Visual Arts
You are here: Home / Music / Classical Music / Classical Album Review: “One Movement Symphonies” — Let’s Have a Follow-Up

Classical Album Review: “One Movement Symphonies” — Let’s Have a Follow-Up

July 23, 2021 1 Comment

By Jonathan Blumhofer

This is a disc that begs for a sequel (or a whole series).

Michael Stern’s new recording with the Kansas City Symphony (KCS) celebrates a subgenre one probably doesn’t think about all that much: the single-movement symphony. Given the rewards of this album, which showcases symphonic works by Samuel Barber, Jean Sibelius, and Alexander Scriabin, perhaps one should.

Of course, there’s no single way to write a one-movement symphony.

Barber’s 1936 Symphony no. 1, for instance, is split into four roughly clear-cut divisions that are effectively — if not quite seamlessly — fused together. A mighty opening section leads to a quicksilver, fugal scherzo. After that comes a lush slow movement and, to close, a grand passacaglia-finale.

Stern and his forces clearly have internalized this wonderful music. Its first part is broad, muscular, dramatic, and well-balanced: not only do the Symphony’s contrapuntal lines speak but so do the decorative, swirling woodwind figurations just before the beginning of the Scherzo. Textures in the latter are lean, the KSC’s playing is nimble and spry. The radiant slow movement is strongly shaped and the driving passacaglia provides a potent, cathartic exhalation.

Granted, one might lean a bit more heavily into the piece: Leonard Slatkin’s thirty-plus-year-old benchmark recording with the cross-state St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is more epic, boldly underlining the score’s extremes and taking more time in spots (like the Adagio). That said, cooler Barber (like this) pays dividends, too.

The Sibelius Seventh Symphony, on the other hand, is, at once, better known and, compositionally, a bit more subtle, moving fluently between a half-dozen themes and motives that seem to be undergoing near-constant transformation.

Stern and the KSC never get lost in the music’s thickets.

Indeed, the orchestra’s attention to the score’s dynamics and articulations is superb. One hears, as a result, all sorts of little details, from echoes of melodic lines across the ensemble to heterophonic gestures and nuances of scoring (Sibelius’s widely-spaced clarinet writing, for instance, comes across magnificently). Taken together with Stern’s rhythmically tight, texturally clear, bracingly unfussy approach to the larger piece, and this is one dynamic Sibelius Seven.

The Scriabin Symphony no. 4 that rounds out the album proves likewise thrilling. True, the piece may not technically be a symphony — Scriabin’s official title for it is The Poem of Ecstasy — but the music’s immense expressive scope (and huge, colorful orchestration) certainly feel symphonic.

The KSC’s performance blends delicacy and bombast with equal vigor. The Poem’s opening sequence of solos (particularly those for clarinet, oboe, piccolo, and cello) are beautifully done. Dense as some of Scriabin’s orchestrations may be, Stern ensures they’re all lucidly balanced. What’s more, the stratospheric trumpet writing over the work’s second half is spectacularly executed, the music’s fast sections are rhythmically tight, and the final apotheosis is iridescent.

In other words: this is a Scriabin Fourth Symphony brimming with character and color; you’re in expert hands throughout.

Reference Recording’s sonics are, by and large, warm and natural. Indeed, this is a disc that begs for a sequel (or a whole series): one-movement symphonies by Lutoslawski, Roy Harris, Steven Stucky, Christopher Rouse, William Schuman, Havergal Brian, Rued Langgaard — throw in a sinfonia or two by Mozart, if you’d like, for good measure. The possibilities would be, if not endless, at least riveting.


Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Share
Tweet
Pin
Share

By: Jonathan Blumhofer Filed Under: Classical Music, Featured, Music, Review Tagged: Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern, One Movement Symphonies, Reference Recordings

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. DIE SAMSTAG-PRESSE – 24. JULI 2021 - Klassik begeistert says:
    July 24, 2021 at 2:48 am

    […] Classical Album Review: “One Movement Symphonies” — Let’s Have a Follow-Up https://artsfuse.org/233378/classical-album-review-one-movement-symphonies/ […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search

Popular Posts

  • Concert Review: Goose Earns Its Indie-Groove Wings Goose has seen its stock in the jam-band world soar at... posted on March 26, 2023
  • Rock Concert Review: Bruce Springsteen at TD Garden — Largely Choreographed and Celebratory So yeah, mortality was a heavy theme in Bruce Springste... posted on March 22, 2023
  • Book Review: “Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History” Even more impressive than the sheer amount of raw knowl... posted on March 14, 2023
  • Classical Concert Review: The Boston Symphony Orchestra Plays Wolfe and Górecki Brimming with edge-of-seat intensity and fist-waving th... posted on March 17, 2023
  • Rock Concert Review: Elvis Costello — Proudly Flaunting his Dependability and Unpredictability Elvis Costello loves to visit various regions of the pa... posted on March 10, 2023

Social

Follow us:

Footer

  • About Us
  • Advertising/Underwriting
  • Syndication
  • Media Resources
  • Editors and Contributors

We Are

Boston’s online arts magazine since 2007. Powered by 70+ experts and writers.

Follow Us

Monthly Archives

Categories

"Use the point of your pen, not the feather." -- Jonathan Swift

Copyright © 2023 · The Arts Fuse - All Rights Reserved · Website by Stephanie Franz